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Flaherty's Math Just Doesn't Add Up

Fri, 07/05/2013 - 10:08am

Flaherty's spreadsheet predictions a major fail.

If you still believe there might be something to Councilor David Flaherty's doom and gloom projections for Westfield, you might want to consider how wrong he got it last year when he projected that this year's school budget would be $5 million short. Thinking that our schools were in such dire straits, he asked the City Council to consider crafting a Proposition 2 1/2 override vote to raise money for the schools.

At a June 21, 2012 council meeting, Flaherty justified his call for the override vote by claiming that "the math doesn't work" for the coming 2014 school budget. He also questioned how it would be possible to find $5 million for the schools next year and wondered aloud why school officials couldn't "add two more columns to their spreadsheet" to figure that out. You can see and hear all of it for yourself.

As we now know, nothing of the sort happened. It would appear Flaherty's mystical belief in the power of spreadsheets to predict the future just might be a tad unfounded. And if Flaherty can be so far off on a one year projection for one part of the city's budget, is it likely his five year projection for the entire city will be accurate?

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